Chapter Text
When he finally awoke, his mouth tasted like grains of sand and the muckyness of not opening your mouth when you're asleep. Shuffling and not so quiet whispering could be heard outside the door.
Right.
He was kidnapped.
And he has no idea where his siblings are, or even where he is.
He slowly opened his eyes and tried to sit up—but immediately stumbled. His arms and torso felt like jelly and his wings itched furiously.
After successfully sitting up, Grian took in the world around him—or room. The bed was still stiff as a board, the light above him had slightly dimmed, and there were no windows.
So basically, he was in a chemical smelling jail cell—what he deserved to get this treatment, he didn't know.
A knock sounded from the door and his eyes snapped towards it, it was precise and clinical. The door opened to see a tall black haired woman in a lab coat, a badge was near her collar, but too far away to see.
She approached Grian, took a glance over him and searched her pocket from a small notepad, flipping it to a blank page and using a pen from her lanyard to write something unknown to Grian down.
She mumbled quietly and looked back to Grian when she was done, “How do you feel overall?”
He didn't feel great—but he felt better than when he was injected in the arm however long ago that was. Or did she mean mentally? He was usually good at that stuff, but he was panicking about his siblings, so he just picked the simplest answer.
“Sore.”
That part was very true, whatever he had done during the kidnapping had worn him down to his bones, but he also had a strange feeling within him, like he was changing physically.
“I’m sure you’ve felt the effects of the potion we gave you, it should fade in a few days, considering the conversion has already started. I’ll have someone bring you some water and a few crackers.” She then shuffled out of the room, leaving just his reaction.
…
Conversion?
What conversion?
So he was changing, unknown to him what it was, cause it certainly wasn't changing his attitude about being kidnapped. He fluttered his wings unconsciously and felt thousand pricks of dirt from not cleaning them—now or never he supposed.
However when he reached behind himself to pull out a pesky feather, his wings felt different. Not in a “I haven't been preened in 3 years" way, but they just felt more… course. It could just be because he needs to take a shower, but when he looked at his wings, his face dropped.
No, they weren't gone, but they were an entirely different color.
Grian felt his hand tightening in his wings. So these mysterious people are just going to take him and his siblings, lock him up in a room for however long they want, and take his identity.
This was no doubt the city.
Bad things happened to hybrids in the city.
And he can't imagine this will be the only one.
So yeah, everything is fine! He’s stuck in a room with no way out, and he just found out his wings are no longer red, yellow, and blue, but now pink and black. It would've been a great color palette if he was part of some sort of K-pop group, but he is supposed to be a parrot.
Where even was he, and why would he and his siblings be the ones to be taken?
Instead of panicking even more about his new wing color, he decided to take a look around the room.
Standing up from the stiffest bed in the country was quite the challenge, especially when he had his mind on a thousand different things at once, his siblings, his wing color, overall where he even was.
A twinge of pain went through his body and Grian clutched onto the end table to keep stable. A glass of water that he didn't even notice was brought in by the woman almost tipped over. At least they have some hospitality.
A quick sip of water made him exhale in relief, who knows how long he hasn't had water in. The glass was quickly emptied and he made his way towards the door. After a quick jiggle of the doorknob, it was found to be locked.
Grian sighed to himself, Oh course it was locked, why wouldnt they lock it?
He put his ear against the door, but finding nothing particular about it, he decided to go to the other side of the room, a small couch and a powered off machine next to his bed, probably to monitor him when he was passed out, but how would he know? He's not a doctor.
The couch was mildly comfortable at best when he sat on it. It had a boring modern painting with a bunch of random strokes above it. Eh, he never really saw the appeal of modern paintings.
Now that he was actually getting comfortable on the couch, it wasn't that bad, well anything would be better than whatever that disgrace of a bed is.
Could they at least give him some cards to play with? He's been meaning to learn some tricks to freak out Jimmy. Or a book? Is he just going to rot away in this room?
Right as Grian was in the middle of a clearly one-sided conversation in his head, a knock sounded at the door.
A tall blonde woman with goggles peeked out from the side of the door. She was wearing a white and red striped shirt tucked inside her brown shorts, along with a belt of different colored liquids swishing around their containers. A teal-green jacket is thrown over her shoulder as she gives a small smile to him. “Hello, you must be… Grian?”
Grian gives her a pointed look, she doesn't look like that other woman who came in earlier, this woman was less… cold? Like she actually enjoyed her job.
She let go of the door and sat down on the bed facing him, “Sorry that might be rude of me not to introduce myself, my name is False.”
Her hand was outstretched to him and sat in the air until he very reluctantly reciprocated the handshake. She took one of the red potions out of her belt, and began to explain what it was.
“This right here is a healing potion, and I've heard from the nurse that was in here earlier that you’ve been feeling a bit sore, and this will make you feel better, easy-peezy!” She took the stopper out the top of the tube and gave it to Grian.
He quickly downed the red liquid and handed it back to False, “Cool, so, uh… why am I here, exactly?”
False looked around for a moment and mumbled, “Well I thought they would've told you already, but I guess X isn't here yet.” She got up from the bed and quickly went to the door, “I’ll go get him now!” and shut it.
The potion he took feels bubbly, but he does feel better somehow. The thing he wants to know most is: who i–
“Sorry, do you want any food or more water?” False popped back in.
Grian shot up off the couch and squeald—a very manly squeal. He quickly covered his mouth and nodded, “Yeah some water and food would be nice.”
She took the glass off the table and laughed as he tried to act like he didn't sound like a little girl when he was caught off guard.
And now he’s back to being super bored, at least he was getting food, and talking to a random guy named X? Not to mention he's been kidnapped by a random group of people, a large group of people presumably with all these employees.
Ughhhhhh he's just remembered how uncomfortable his wings are right now! Turning back around he started combing through his coverts and straightening them out. Not much debris other than a few leaves and dry skin were on his wings.
But it just felt so different with these “new” wings. They certainly didn't feel like his and they just looked ugly compared to what wings he had as his pride and joy.
Beautiful red feathers at the top of his wings that turned to blue at the end, with yellow transitioning them together.
Gone.
He combed and corrected the other wing until he sat in silence, waiting for False to get back.
A few minutes went by before Grian was alerted by a series of knocks at the door. False came through the doorway first with a plate of food and a watercup, she gave the plate and cup to Grian. It looked like a regular ham sandwich cut into two triangles, he gave her his thanks and took a bite.
He still sort of wished he was eating the sandwiches Jimmy had made a few days ago, or however long he has been asleep.
The person who walked in after False had a grey helmet with a purple visor over his eyes, along with a very green outfit and a simple pair of grey boots. He introduced himself as Xisuma and explained that he was the head of heroes in the HHA—or better known as the Hermit Heroes Association.
Heroes association? Why would he be here of all places? Did a hero have to go outside the city and take a bunch of avians? Or maybe they would use him for testing different stuff on the heroes, that would explain his wings changing color… and this weird sensation at his fingertips. Companies have to test their product before selling it I guess.
“And I would be here because..?” Grian looked up from the second half of his sandwich and looked between False and Xisuma.
Xisuma scratched the back of his head and gave an awkward chuckle, “I’m not too sure what the entire story was here, my boss just kinda said there would be some new people here and to train them, and poof! You appeared!" He gave low effort jazz-hands at the end and looked back to Grian, "We figured you need a few days or a week to adjust before we start training. We will be happy to give you something do while you wait,”
Training. Why would he need to train? The only people who would need to do that were–
The heroes.
Was he kidnapped by these random people to become a hero? Yeah oh sure, just separate him from his siblings and then bring him to a city who inherently hates hybrids and just hope that he becomes a hero! Nothing could ever go wrong.
Grian jerked up from the couch and shoved Xisuma so he would fall over onto the bed, opened the—luckily unlocked door—and bolted around the corner.
For only having been asleep for the past few days, he was already exhausted when he started hearing footsteps behind him. He couldn't focus on that now, he just had to find some sort of exit around this place.
The walls felt like they just repeated every turn he took. Right, left, left again, right, straight. Once he took another straight hallway, a sign above him pointed to the stairs. The footsteps got louder behind him as he heard somebody yelling. His legs felt like they would give out any second when he got to the stairwell. His wings started moving before he did and he found himself half-gliding-half-running down the stairs. A hero—he assumed—crashed into him as he was going down.
He screamed and tried to kick the hero off of him, but was quickly pinned down by his shoulders. False—who clearly kept up with him well—helped detain him.
He must've hit his head pretty hard on the floor…
It didn't matter too much, he wasn't one opposed to naps.
———
Grian’s head felt foggy as he woke up, and he could hear hushed voices in the room he’s in.
“He’s valuable, but why would Ren send him in?” That was False.
“He packed some kicks dude! I'm going to need some potions later, False. Hey– What was that for?” Now that voice wasn't one he's heard before, maybe it was the guy who tackled him?
It seemed Xisuma was the only one paying attention, because when Grian started moving around, he quickly noticed. “I think Grian might be awake, Tango, you can stay in here and talk to him.”
He tried to open his eyes more, but the lights were way too bright, so he tried to use his hand to cover the lights—exept he couldn't. His right hand was connected to the bedside with a cuff. He did try to run away, it was fair enough.
False dimmed the lights and he sat up as much as he could, “How long was I…uh, passed out?”
“It's been a few hours, two or three, luckily Tango here didn't tackle you too hard.” Xisuma patted Tango on the shoulder. He wore a dark red jumpsuit of some kind with a grey vest over it. His hair was…on fire? Flames jumped around his head and he had red eyes that bounced around the room as he looked at everything. His eyes were drawn to a small motion behind Tango, a long tail-like appendage with flames as the end slowly swung side to side.
It didn't feel too bad that he was a hybrid here now that he’s seen another one being treated normally in front of him. Could there be more hybrids in this building? Surely this wasn't a one-time exception?
Grian exhaled, if escaping didn't work then he was going to have to try something different.
He could trick them. Be the perfect little hero, go out at night to find his siblings, then–
Then what?
Go back home?
Wait for them to notice he’s gone, then just get kidnapped again?
He would figure something out.
False excused herself to go tend to something, leaving just him, Xisuma, and Tango.
“Does anyone have a deck of cards? Oh wait I do– Brb!” Tango sprinted out of the room.
“Have you seen anyone named Jimmy or Pearl, Xisuma?” Grian slowly looked up to see Xisuma with a confused look on his face.
“Err, not that I've seen, Ren only brought you over here and said what to do, are they your friends?” He had a pitying look on his face that—if he didn't already see from False when he was restrained—he would've found a trash can to throw up in.
“No, they aren't important.”
Tango basically flew back into the room with a pack of cards in his hand, “Go Fish! Xisuma shuffle these, you do it best.”
“I’ve never shuffled in front of you before? Oh well,”
“Go…fish? Like in a pond?” Grian stared at Tango who was moving the end table across the room so he could put cards on it.
Tango burst out laughing, “Ha! No– that's so funny! Go Fish is a card game where you collect books of cards, then whoever has the most at the end wins.”
Books, going fishing? Was everyone in the city this mental? Why would you need to go fishing for a book?
Tango kept laughing periodically as Xisuma shuffled and he explained the rules. You start out with 6 cards each player, after that’s done you put them into a draw pile, which is called the “pond”. You have to collect all 4 of each card—then you would show it to the others and set it down to get your points.
But if you didn't have the full set, you would have to ask a player for the card you need, they would either give you one if they had one or say “Go fish” and you had to draw from the pond.
Considering Grian learned the game on the spot, he was surprised to be in the lead of the game. Eventually when the pond ran out of cards, he was counted the winner because he had more books than anyone. They played a few more times after that and Tango won twice and Xisuma only once.
They all said goodbye to each other and Xisuma and Tango headed out, leaving just Grian in the room again. Sure that was funny and they turned out to be really nice, but could he really trust them in the long run?
He tried to get comfortable in bed, but the cuff around his wrist made it hard to find a good laying down position. He eventually got so fed up with it that he slammed the back of his hand against the bar of the bed it was connected on, leaving him hissing through his teeth. Whatever, he’s felt worse.
Uncomfortable position in bed it was then.
While he slowly drifted off to sleep he thought about what he saw in the short minutes outside in the hallway, he saw a few openings into some kind of open area that also led to rooms. If he had to guess, it was where some of the heroes lived, they must have a lot of levels, and Tango came from in front of him in the stairwell, he probably lived in the floor below.
The last thing he thought about before he nodded off to sleep was: How many heroes are even here?